Most Profitable Duplex Yet! - with rehab pictures

[Dave Carpenter]

Success Story – Hi Mount Duplex 

This property looks to be my best property yet! Here is the short story behind acquiring this property.

On December 19th, 2015 I saw this property and sent my agent an email saying I was interested. I had already seen a few pictures and knew it would take some significant interior work.

Three days later we were at the property and walking in the front door. As I had expected most of the interior would need to be updated. Floors, paint, some fixtures, and significant work in the kitchen. The good news was that there didn’t appear to be any large improvements needed. The bigger ticket items like the roof, furnace, and hot water heaters were all relatively new.

I knew the area pretty well and had a good sense of what the rents were likely to be. One of the things that drew me to this property was the larger 3 bedroom units both up and down. Each unit was over 1400sqft with a good sized kitchen and bathroom. So far so good. After walking both units and the outside of the property I felt comfortable knowing what I was getting into.

That night I again logged on to BiggerPockets and using the rental property calculator entered in all the information that I had gathered that day. I had to estimate some things like rehab costs and purchase price, but was also able to be pretty specific in other areas like property taxes, insurance and water.

After running the numbers I felt comfortable submitting an offer. The negotiations went as followed:

12/22 sent my agent an offer for $85,000

12/26 Seller countered at $92,500

12/26 I countered at $88,500

12/28 Seller countered at $90,000

12/28 I resubmitted an offer for $88,500 which was accepted.

Fastforward almost 2 months

2/10 Closing – Finally got the keys!

Now began the rehab. They say pictures are worth a thousand words, so here are “1000 words” on the rehab!

Bathroom

Butlers Pantry

Dining Room and living room floor

Bedroom walls and floors

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After

Some takeaways for me on this property:

• 1.Painting the entire interior of a house is a big task. Glad I didn’t do it all!
• 2.If it’s an old house, check craigslist, etsy, or pintrest in case there is value in an old item. (I sold the kitchen sinks for $500 each on craigslist!)
• 3.A 3 car garage can provide a value add when one of your tenants doesn’t want to park one of their cars outside.

Now it’s on to the next one!